city slicker

city slickers

If you live in New York and are completely comfortable with your fast-paced urban lifestyle, you're a city slicker — especially when compared to your friends who live on a farm in Vermont.

This term is gently derogatory, particularly when it's used to comment on how ill-suited someone is to life in the country. "You city slickers should've brought some mud boots," your country-dwelling uncle might say, looking at your bright white sneakers. City slicker first appeared around 1916, and a short 1918 film called "The City Slicker" tells the story of a fancy urbanite who shows up in a dusty rural town.